И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT В. SUPPORTED MONORAILS

(1) A monorail car which is supported from below is unstable because the centre of gravity of the vehicle is above the rail. Without help, the car cannot keep its balance. The means used to provide balance divide the supported monorails into four groups.

(2) The first group uses a gyroscope, a device based on a principle of rotation (вращение) which helps a vehicle keep its balance. The Brennan car was an example of a monorail vehicle of this group. However, this method of keeping balance is of little interest today because the pas­sengers are in constant fear (страх) that the gyroscope may stop rotating.

(3) The second way to keep balance is by guide (на­правляющий) rail. The monorails of that group had a single guide rail suspended above the vehicle. That type, howe­ver, lacked safety and after some accidents (авария) the idea was dropped.

(4) Other monorails balanced the cars by two guide rails. The system was very noisy and could not provide smooth running because the stability of the car was diffi­cult to control. As a result, the wear of track and equip­ment made the system inconvenient for modern high-speed monorails.

(5) A new method of balancing the monorail vehicles was designed in Germany, in 1952. Under this system, the car is moving on a concrete beamway (балка) which carries notches (желоб) for guide wheels (колесо). This type of supported system is promising since it is operating safer and smoother than the first three types.

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